Posted by BMT Micro

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Shopping cart abandonment is the largest obstacle for online businesses to overcome. According to Baymard Institute, the average rate of cart abandonment has now grown close to 70%. It’s also impossible for an online business to fully prevent abandoned carts. Unfortunately, even fairly basic errors can be costly and can drive away customers & steal revenue without you even realizing it.

The first step in addressing shopping cart abandonment is to understand why visitors are abandoning their cart. In the following infographic, we’ll be looking at the common causes of shopping cart abandonment and ways to reduce it.

E-commerce shoppers are smart and when they are looking to purchase a product or service they will browse multiple sites, compare products, pricing and shipping costs. As an online business, you must find ways to encourage customers to complete their online purchases on your site.

Partnering with a trusted and well-established e-commerce company, like BMT Micro, can also save an online business the time and hassle of dealing with issues that lead to shopping cart abandonment. Our proprietary shopping cart system is versatile and robust. We can provide shopping carts with highly customized programming depending on your specific requirements. Furthermore, all BMT Micro servers are fully secured and host all shopping carts using the highest encryption standards available so there is no need to worry about the expense of a secure certificate. If you have any questions or if you are interested in learning more about BMT Micro’s offerings please contact our vendor services at vendors@bmtmicro.com.

Posted by BMT Micro

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Periodically, we like to highlight and review products for which BMT Micro acts as reseller or payment processor. With this Product Profile, we are going to be highlighting our Embroidery vendors and their products.

What is Embroidery?
By definition, “embroidery is the handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. Today, embroidery is most often seen on caps, hats, coats, blankets, dress shirts, denim, stockings, and golf shirts. Embroidery is available with a wide variety of thread or yarn color. The basic techniques or stitches on surviving examples of the earliest embroidery—chain stitch, buttonhole or blanket stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, cross stitch—remain the fundamental techniques of hand embroidery today.”

Typically, when people think about embroidery they associate it with generations before them. However, embroidery is a beautiful skill that is making a comeback. Today’s embroidery consists of everything from quilts to clutches to clothing, and more. There has even been a resurgence of embroidery within the fashion world. The distinctive feature has recently been unveiled in pre-fall and fall collections by well-established brands like Valentino and Gucci. So, you should definitely get used to seeing embroidery around more.

Posted by BMT Micro

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Online businesses face a number of hurdles in order to accept payments from their customers. For that reason, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the basics of e-commerce and the terminology. Two key components that allow businesses to accept payments online are merchant accounts and payment gateways. Having a proper understanding of what these key elements are and why they are needed can help lower costs as a business expands.

What is a Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway allows a business to process credit, debit and alternative payments online. Just like a physical point of sales terminal at a brick and mortar retail store, the payment gateway is used for facilitating online transactions and helps with authorization. Payment gateways play an intermediary role between the transactions processed on a website and the payment processor. For security reasons, transaction information cannot be transmitted directly from a website to a payment processor.

How it works: The payment gateway is the first place a transaction goes once a customer submits their payment on a checkout page. The payment then goes to the payment processor and on through the credit card network. After, the payment reaches the customer’s credit card issuer for authorization. If approved, the payment will make its way from the customer’s credit card into the merchant account.

What is a Merchant Account?
In order to process transactions from a website using a payment gateway, a merchant account is needed. A merchant account enables online businesses to accept multiple forms of payment, including credit cards, debit cards, and ACH payments. It is a bank account that is specifically designed for the deposit of funds within an electronic payment transaction. Before a business receives funds in their normal bank account, all approved payments are transferred into the merchant account. Without one, the approved payments have nowhere to go.

There are several merchant account providers out there to suit any businesses’ processing needs. Make sure to choose the right provider that offers the best possible rate and fees for your business.

Full-service e-commerce providers, like BMT Micro, also make accepting payments easier by offering a merchant account and a payment gateway all in one. With BMT Micro, all sales are processed through our merchant accounts so you are not required to have your own merchant account (or even a PayPal account). We handle it all and make payment processing much simpler!

If you have any questions or if you would like to learn more about the services we offer, please contact our vendor services via email at vendors@bmtmicro.com for more information.

Posted by BMT Micro

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Poor customer service is the fastest way to lose customers and can hurt your business more than you think. Businesses are losing an excess of $80 billion per year in the US and $300 billion worldwide through poor customer service. 89% of consumers who experience poor service will switch to another brand. What’s more, nearly 7 in 10 consumers (68%) said they would not go back once they switched.

It’s clear that undervaluing customer service is a risky strategy. Poor customer service is expensive and the following are long-term costs that can lead to a business’ failure:

1. Damaged Reputation
Warren Buffett once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” Your reputation is what establishes your brand and drives revenue growth. To a large degree your reputation is a measure of trust and unfortunately, a bad one can stick around for a long time.

Today’s consumers are quick to share negative feedback when they have a bad experience with a business. In a recent study, 95% of respondents said they usually tell at least one other person about a bad customer experience with a company, while 54% said they share it with at least 5 other people.

2. Conversion Rates Are Impacted & Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) Drops
Poor customer service kills conversion rates. It directly affects whether or not consumers actually complete a purchase they set out to make. In fact, 78% of consumers have abandoned a purchase that they intended to make because of poor customer service.

9 out of 10 consumers say they’re willing to pay more to ensure a good customer experience and as much as 70% will continue to do business when a complaint is resolved. Keeping current customers costs considerably less than acquiring new ones, and poor customer service can destroy your average customer lifetime value.

3. Increased Price Sensitivity
63.9% of consumers consider customer service to be more important than price when deciding whether or not to do business with a company. And 55% would actually pay more to guarantee better service. But, poor customer service also directly affects how sensitive consumers are to a change in price.

Research from TARP Worldwide, published in Customer Experience 3.0, found that additional problems increased consumers’ sensitivity to price, price changes, and additional fees. TARP also found that increased product prices or service fees bothered only 10% of consumers who didn’t experience service issues. However, almost 50% of consumers that had two or more service problems were unhappy about price hikes and were less likely to stick around when they occurred.

Keep in mind; customers are 4 times more likely to stop doing business with a company for a service-related issue over pricing or product concerns. Customer satisfaction is key. This is true for any business, no matter where you are or what kind of products or services you are offering.

If you are looking for assistance when it comes to customer support for your business, BMT Micro may be a solution for you. We have a highly trained customer service department that is quick to respond to customers’ and vendors’ inquiries. They are always available to answer any questions or concerns that you may have. Our customer service team handles all questions related to the payment and ordering process; however, for technical support (for instance how to play a specific game), customers are referred to the developer of the software or product. If you would like to learn more about the services we offer, please contact our vendor services via email at vendors@bmtmicro.com for more information.